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5 Things We've Learned About 'Dragon Age III: Inquisition' So Far

As more and more information about BioWare’s upcoming Dragon Age III emerge, here are five things we know for sure.

BioWare has been in a rut ever since its acquisition by EA.

The once mighty, do-no-wrong RPG developer has fallen on hard times. Even with the strong sales of Mass Effect 3, the company faces a struggling MMO in Star Wars: The Old Republic, an increasingly jaded core fan base, and the resignation of its co-founders.

Will Dragon Age III be the game to turn it all around?

It’s hard to say, of course, but early information about the game brings both good and bad news for fans of the series.

Here are five things we know so far about the game.

1. Dragon Age III: Inquisition will have bigger maps than the previous game.

Specifically, Dragon Age III’s maps will be massive.

Cinematic Designer John Perry said that “one level in Dragon Age 3 is as big as all of Dragon Age 2‘s levels.”

This is certainly a step in the right direction given the limitations of DA2 levels.

Then again, it’s not just about size. Here’s hoping that the level design itself is better than in either of the previous Dragon Age games.

One thing sorely lacking in many modern games, and especially RPGs, is smart level design. Lovely terrain isn’t enough, levels need to be – in many ways – characters in the game itself.

Levels not only provide room for exploration and adventure and challenge, they bring a world to life. Level design is just another way to tell a compelling story.

2. You won’t be able to play as other high fantasy racial tropes.

Personally, any game that says “No, you can’t play as a bearded dwarf or pointy-eared elf” I think is on the right track.

That being said, the racial diversity in Origins gave players many more story options and a great deal more replay value than the second game.

BioWare could make up for the loss of racial diversity with a range of background stories for your protagonist and varying story lines. The linearity of the second game stood in stark contrast to the origins of the first and the way those origins helped flesh out the story later in the game.

Either way, I don’t mourn the loss of dwarves and elves, only the loss of narrative diversity.

BioWare does seem to understand the need for making the game personalized however…

3. Inquisition will have deeper customization than Origins.

Creative Director Mike Laidlaw has said that “customization is going to be bigger than Dragon Age: Origins.”

“Bigger” is an odd way to put this, but it basically boils down to a much deeper level of character customization than in the previous games.

Given that RPG fans like yours truly are basically obsessed with customization of our characters and creating truly unique people in these games, it’s always puzzling when customization options are limited.

BioWare is on the right track with this, especially since they’ve also said that followers will have deep customization options as well rather than the pretty limited customization options present in DA2.

Assigning your follower NPCs a unique visual identity is integral to the storytelling according to BioWare. I agree.

4. Longer development cycle than Dragon Age II.

“The Dragon Age team has been working on Dragon Age 3: Inquisition for almost two years now,” Aaryn Flynn, BioWare’s General Manager, said recently.

Two years is a good long time for a game to be in development, and it’s not even close to being out the gates. This is comforting.

Contrast this with the incredibly rushed development cycle of Dragon Age II. I still think the second game’s shortcomings can be mostly chalked up to pressure to put out the sequel as quickly as possible.

BioWare had only recently been acquired by EA, and the success of Origins almost certainly propelled the rushed development of the second game. Who knows how much content was cut or patched over in order to get the game onto store shelves? There were many good things about Dragon Age II, but you can really tell where they cut in terms of scope and depth.

5. Old characters will return, including Flemeth, and the previous stories will impact this one.

This is all still very vague and unsurprising. Of course the previous games will impact this one, and of course Flemeth will return in some form or another.

The real question is how the older stories will impact this one and whether it will actually matter.

In Dragon Age, you don’t carry over characters from previous games like you do in Mass Effect. There is no Commander Shepard.

This should take some of the pressure off the development team in creating a story that ties up all the loose ends of the first two games – a frankly overly ambitious goal for the Mass Effect franchise.

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Of course, there’s plenty more that’s been hinted at or confirmed, such as the use of the Battlefield Frostbyte 2 engine, which makes those massive maps possible.

BioWare has mentioned the possibility of “taking control” of castles, possibly pointing to player-controlled bases of some sort.

There’s a political element to the story as well, though how that meta-game may play out is anyone’s guess.

And since EA doesn’t sign off on any single-player games these days and makes sure to be as cross-platform as possible, we can expect some sort of repeat of Mass Effect 3′s Galactic Readiness debacle. It wouldn’t have to be a disaster, of course – the concept of bringing the game and story to multiple devices and having a separate multiplayer component isn’t a bad one. It’s all about the execution.

So, what do you think? Does the lack of racial options tick you off or slide off your back? Does the promise of more customization and bigger maps ring a hopeful bell or is it all smoke and mirrors?

A lot of fans have given up on BioWare, but I think at least some of these early tidbits of information sound like a step in the right direction.

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Hmm, I dunno about not allowing people to play a character they want. It doesn’t bother me at all, I’m definitely up for more options and stories that don’t use jaded archetypes but I’m sure there’s plenty out there that love playing a loud obnoxious bearded dwarf that loves his ale and do so at every opportunity they can.

I usually don’t replay RPGs that often unless there’s a significantly different way to do so, a few dialogue options and a different ending cutscene don’t really do it for me as you still tend to be going back and playing the core of it exactly the same. For me an interesting solution to both these points could be having races or characters unlock after you complete the game.

Even if their stories were a fraction the length of the main quest, jumping into a few hours of playing a battle hungry axe wielding dwarf (that maybe has a pre-established backstory; level 20, has some gear he acquired in previous adventures etc) might be a nice respite from the hours you spent in the main story with your human mage/elf ranger/zombie monk etc.

My musings aside the most significant thing I see here is the longer development cycle. Things like reused art assets in DA2 reeked of either budget or time constraints and I think this will be one of the bigger factors contributing to the quality of the game.

It is a bioware game on the other hand so I’ll probably whip out the ole’ bioware cliche chart and see how many boxes DA3 ticks http://rampantgames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/bwcliches.png

Well I still think #1 matters. Sure, the levels were limited in DA2, but if a single map is as big as all of them put together? That’s still an impressive size.

Your last line is hilariously redundant by the way (and I mean that in a good way.)

I’m still playing wait and see with this one, of course, but I think there are some good signs. Maybe you’re right about the customization, but it does *sound* like they’ve heard the complaints on this front and the longer dev cycle might reflect this.

I recall that when they (in hindsight mistakenly) asked people to write comments about DA2 just after its release over on the Bioware forums. The most positive thing I could say was that there were many places where you could see or feel what the dev’s had in mind, and that those ideas would have been wonderful…had they been given the time to implement them correctly (or at all). This was in fact probably the most depressing thing about DA2 – you really could see the potential there, as well as understanding why they made some of the game-play choices they did.

(The ‘dumbing down’ of the combat system, in so far as making it and the inventory system simpler, pre-dates EA’s takeover of BW. You can see this trend in BW games over the years. If you compare Neverwinter Nights to Dragon Age; Origins, the latter has a far more ‘dumbed down’ combat and inventory system than the former…but no one complained about DA;O’s system.)

Of course as you noted time alone does not a great game make, all you need is one lead writer who makes a strange and indefensible choice to totally screw everything up – Hello Mr Hudson. That or some marketing moron to insist that some feature is included in the product that no one really wants – hello DRM and required online features. **** Your last line is hilariously redundant by the way (and I mean that in a good way.) ***

Thank you, I try. People are always commenting on that, always telling me how trying I am ;)

Oh, and I agree re: “dumbed down” inventory, etc. A video game can retain many of the PnP complexity of D&D style gaming while keeping some of that “under the hood” as it were. Sometimes things can be too complex for their own good, and a bit of polish and sensible UI/inventory management overhaul can be quite beneficial.

Say for example you find “Silver Breastplate”, and say you have a “grey Warden” and a “Seeker” for example. You could equip Silver Breastplate on both characters but its appearance would change depending on which of them is wearing it, thus conforming to their identity.

Bioware has also proposed that we’ll be able to play around with colour and fabric (heavy Mass Effect influence here)

I’m not at all upset about not being able to pick your race. If it means we get a full voice character like in 2, I’m all for sacrificing that. Was the extra storylines and attitude depending on race from DA:O good? Yes it was. But I think it’s tie to move on from that.

A lot of these promises are what we heard from Mass Effect 3. And we all know how well those promises were delivered.

Either way, to me, this is Bioware’s last chance at redemption. If Dragon age 3 fails, I’m giving up on the company for good.

I would love to believe that all of these “improvements” will be executed flawlessly. But I gotta admit, I’m one of those kind of “jaded fans”. Bioware kind of sold their souls to partner with EA. Any time you let a big money third party in on your IP, (especially one that had nothing to do with the IP in the first place) you’re asking for watered down, mediocre products IMO. Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1&2, KOTOR 1. All of these franchises have become mere shells of what they started out as. To me, Dragon Age III will either make or break this developer for me. And this is coming from someone who started out a diehard fan of anything Bioware came out with. Where it used to be a guarantee that I was buying quality product, it seems more often than not like a shot in the dark nowadays. Moral of this comment: If you want to make original, creative and quality products, don’t give into the $ man when he comes a knockin. Don’t risk diluting your product just for more money!